The abolitionist Harriet Tubman is famous as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, but her contributions to the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War are less commonly known. On Veterans Day last year, Tubman’s home state of Maryland sought to rectify that by posthumously commissioning Tubman as a one-star brigadier general in the state’s National Guard.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore spoke at the ceremony, describing Tubmans as “a soldier and a person who earned the title of veteran” and “one of the greatest authors of the American story.” Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece Tina Wyatt accepted the military honors on her ancestor’s behalf, calling her a “selfless person” who “gave up any rights that she had obtained for herself to be able to fight for others.”
One of the most remarkable parts of Harriet Tubman’s story is that she chose to put her freedom and her life in peril after escaping from slavery in 1849 and settling in Philadelphia. Though she could have stayed in Philadelphia, perhaps supporting the abolitionist cause remotely, she returned to Maryland 13 times over the next decade. As a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad network of anti-slavery safe houses, she led around 70 enslaved people to freedom, including many friends and family members. She also provided the instructions and support that helped dozens of others escape on their own.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Tubman volunteered for the Union Army, originally as a cook and nurse. Her role soon expanded to include spying and scouting, and she set up an intelligence network in Confederate territory and began spying behind enemy lines.
Tubman’s most famous action occurred on June 1, 1863, when she helped Col. James Montgomery and the formerly enslaved soldiers in his 2nd South Caroline Infantry free around 700 people from rice plantations on the Combahee River. Many of them later became soldiers in the Union Army. Tubman’s role in the Raid on Combahee Ferry made her the first U.S. woman to oversee armed military action during wartime.
After the war, Tubman turned her attention to the cause of women’s suffrage, working alongside suffragists like Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. She was deeply committed to the cause of civil rights and formed friendships with William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and many other political and intellectual leaders. She also established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in Auburn, New York.
”Harriet, the Moses of her people":
- Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in 1822 on a plantation in Dorchester County, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
- At age 13, her skull was fractured when she was hit in the back of the head by a large weight thrown by an overseer at an enslaved man attempting to escape. She would suffer from seizures and painful headaches for the rest of her life.
- Tubman struggled to receive fair compensation for her wartime contributions, for which she was paid very little due to her unofficial status. After the war, many politicians objected to a woman receiving a soldier’s pension. For more than a decade, her only military pension ($8 per month) came from being the widow of former Union Army private Nelson Davis. Eventually, in 1899, Congress approved an additional $12 per month to recognize her nursing service, though her roles as a scout and a spy were ignored.